“This is a preliminary report produced under very challenging circumstances and with very limited access to affected areas... However what it suggests has been happening in Southern Kordofan is so serious that it is essential there is an independent, thorough and objective inquiry with the aim of holding perpetrators to account.”

Extracts from the editorial of The Guardian (see full article here):

The myopia of powerful governments is clearly shown in their preference for weak candidates for UN secretary-general. Occasionally they misjudge their man, with interesting results. With Dag Hammarskjöld, it was peacekeeping. Kofi Annan's staff devised the millennium development goals. This time – with the quiet reappointment of secretary-general Ban Ki-moon this summer – they got what they wanted. Mr Ban presides over the slow decay of the UN secretariat, an institution that should be working, as Hammarskjöld said, on the edge of progress. In its last annual report, Human Rights Watch wrote "far from condemning repression, Ban sometimes went out of his way to portray oppressive governments in a positive light". China, Burma, Sri Lanka have benefited from Mr Ban's lax hand. To save his legacy he must refresh his top team with people who understand the UN's principles.

In Washington, the flame of Roosevelt and Truman burns low. Barack Obama and his UN ambassador Susan Rice are too aware of the Republican opposition at home to make a powerful case for the UN. But Mr Obama seeks retrenchment, and an effective UN would help him achieve it. The emerging powers are jealous of their sovereignty and ambivalent about human rights. The challenge is to bind these powers into a progressive security council. Take Libya. Britain, America and France should never again elide the responsibility to protect populations with regime change. Brazil and India, among others, must also recognise that when a ruler declares war on his own people he forfeits sovereignty.

Almost 60 years after an armistice ended the Korean war, the United States has resumed its efforts to bring home the remains of more than 2000 American soldiers.

The US has written to North Korea on the matter, the Pentagon said.

Despite the complete absence of diplomatic ties and particularly frosty ties over recent attacks on South Korea, the US has long sought cooperation with North Korea over the repatriation of soldiers’ remains.

North Korea has reportedly received several millions of dollars in exchange for cooperation.

David Clay Large, professor of history at Montana State University, writes in the New York Times (see full article here):

Few Olympics are as famous as the 1936 Berlin Games, whose 75th anniversary falls this month. The publicity that accompanied the competition, held under the watchful eye of Adolf Hitler, supposedly tamed the Nazi regime.

But much of that story is myth. Indeed, the Olympics gave the Nazis a lesson in how to hide their vicious racism and anti-Semitism, and should offer today’s International Olympic Committee a cautionary tale when considering the location of future events.

When the committee awarded the Olympics to Berlin in 1931 … committee soon came under pressure from Jewish and leftist groups, which threatened to boycott the Games.

The committee held firm, but promised that the Games would 'open up' the Third Reich, that international attention would force it to tone down its repressive measures.

While it’s clear that the Games failed to “open up” the Third Reich, it remains widely believed that, to placate visitors, Hitler’s government cut back its persecution of Jews during the summer [of 1936]  — in other words, that the Games achieved some of what the committee promised.

But the truth is more nuanced. Although the regime did discourage open anti-Semitism, this directive pertained only to Berlin. Outside the capital, the Nuremberg Laws remained in full effect.

The Games were even counterproductive in this respect: not only did such cosmetic steps assuage criticism of the Nazis, but they taught the regime how easy it was to mislead the global public.

This is not to say that the Games should be held only in politically ‘clean’ countries.

But instead of blindly celebrating the alleged openness of repressive regimes that host the event, the international community should use it as an opportunity to hold them to the values that [the Games] claim to represent.

"So far, the protesters have managed to remain apolitical, refusing to declare support for any leader or to be hijacked by any political party.

But there is one issue conspicuously missing from the protests: Israel’s 44-year occupation of the Palestinian territories, which exacts a heavy price on the state budget and is directly related to the lack of affordable housing within Israel proper.

According to a report published by the activist group Peace Now, the Israeli government is using over 15 percent of its public construction budget to expand West Bank settlements, which house only 4 percent of Israeli citizens. According to the Adva Center, a research institute, Israel spends twice as much on a settlement resident as it spends on other Israelis.

Indeed, much of the lack of affordable housing in Israeli cities can be traced back to the 1990s, when the availability of public housing in Israel was severely curtailed while subsidies in the settlements increased, driving many lower-middle-class and working-class Israelis into the West Bank and Gaza Strip — along with many new immigrants.

Israel today is facing the consequences of a policy that favors sustaining the occupation and expanding settlements over protecting the interests of the broader population. The annual cost of maintaining control over Palestinian land is estimated at over $700 million.

Had the protesters begun by hoisting signs against the occupation, they would most likely still be just a few people in tents. By removing the single most divisive issue in Israeli politics, the protesters have created a safe space for Israelis of all ethnic, national and class identities to act together.

And by decidedly placing the occupation outside of the debate, the protesters have neutralized much of the fear-mongering traditionally employed in Israel to silence discussions of social issues."

“Even as they call for the strengthening of Israel’s once-robust welfare state, the protesters are disregarding the fact that it is alive and well in the West Bank.

Although some of their demands can be met without addressing the settlements (like heavier taxes on landlords’ rental income to discourage rent increases), Israel will never become the progressive social democracy the protesters envision until it sheds the moral stain and economic burden of the occupation.”

A Pakistan court prosecuted six paramilitary soldiers and one civilian security guard for the shooting of an unarmed teenager in Karachi two months ago.

A video of the killing, recorded by a local cameraman,  showed the young boy begging for mercy, before being shot, twice.

The video was widely broadcast across television channels and internet sites.

The killing was severely condemned by human rights groups and politicians, whipping up public outrage at the incident.
 
President Asif Ali Zardari swiftly launched an inquiry into the incident. The defendants were brought to the courts and tried in just over two months. The soldier who perpetrated the crimes received the death penalty, whilst remaining defendants received life sentences.

The troops were part of a unit of Rangers – a paramilitary force deployed to maintain order in Karachi.

Whilst denouncing the death sentence issued, Human Rights Watch welcomed the swift delivery of accountability and justice.

“The verdict should go some way in arresting the impunity for abuses by Pakistan’s trigger-happy security and paramilitary agencies,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch.

 “There is no greater deterrent to abuse than fear of accountability.”

"Given the Burmese regime's unabated use of rape as a weapon of war, we urge you to call on the regime to end this practice and pursue our shared goal of establishing an international commission of inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity," the group wrote in a letter to Clinton.

So much for China’s communism.

The editorial by Xinhua, China’s official news agency, in response to the downgrading of the United States’ debt rating reads like a neoliberal manifesto.

Extracts:

“The days when the debt-ridden Uncle Sam could leisurely squander unlimited overseas borrowing appeared to be numbered.

“China, the largest creditor of the world's sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems

“To cure its addiction to debts, the United States has to reestablish the common sense principle that one should live within its means.

“Thus, if no substantial cuts were made to the US gigantic military expenditure and bloated social welfare costs, [this] downgrade would prove to be only a prelude to more devastating rating cuts, which will further roil the global financial markets all along the way.

“Moreover, the spluttering world economic recovery would be very likely to be undermined and fresh rounds of financial turmoil could come back to haunt us all.

“The US has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone.

“It should also stop its old practice of letting its domestic electoral politics take the global economy hostage and rely[ing] on the deep pockets of major surplus countries to make up for its perennial deficits.

“A little self-discipline would not be too uncomfortable for the United States, the world's largest economy and issuer of international reserve currency, to bear.”
 

Extracts from niqash.org (see the full text here):

Nokia Siemens Networks, one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the world, is to expand its manufacturing facility in Chennai, making it the firm’s biggest in Asia.

NSN’s head of operations, Herbert Merz, said the factory in China is currently the company's largest in Asia, but the Chennai facility could overtake it in a year.

The Chennai facility has played a key role in enabling Indian operators to roll out their 3G networks quickly, Ashish Chowdhary, head of India and customer operations East said.

"The expansion will strengthen India's position as one of our major manufacturing hubs in the Asia Pacific, in addition to supporting the growth of India's growing telecom sector," he added.

"Last year, we have procured close to $300 million worth of equipments from the Indian suppliers,” he pointed out.

NSN currently serves 10 major Indian telecom networks, as well as the defence sector, railways, and others.

The site in Oragadam (Chennai) was commissioned in 2007, with NSN investing $70 million and creating 500 jobs, since expanding to 1250. 15% of the company's global work force is based in Chennai.

United States President Obama announced last week the creation of a new body which will coordinate a government approach to genocide and other mass atrocities.

The Atrocities Prevention Board – whose exact authority, mandate, and structure will be under interagency review over the next months – will begin functioning within 120 days, according to the presidential directive announcing its creation.

See reports by the New York Times and Christian Science Monitor.

A senior White House official told the Times one reason Mr. Obama wanted to set up the Atrocities Prevention Board was to avoid a situation in which the president is presented with only two options to respond to a mass atrocity: intervening militarily or doing nothing.

“Governmental engagement on atrocities and genocide too often arrives too late, when opportunities for prevention or low-cost, low-risk action have been missed,” a White House statement on the directive said.

“By the time these issues have commanded the attention of senior policy-makers, the menu of options has shrunk considerably and the costs of action have risen.”

The US move has been welcomed by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. See UPI’s report here. 

Brazil, India and South Africa, which have blocked United Nations pressure on Syria’s government to end repression of protesters, will send envoys to Damascus to seek an end to the violence.

See the report by Bloomberg here.

The three emerging political and economic powers, which in 2003 formed the coalition known as IBSA, plan to send deputy foreign ministers on the mission.

The three have combined to put off action on a US and European draft resolution condemning the Assad regime’s attacks on anti-government protesters.

Western diplomats say that support from the three might dissuade China and Russia from vetoing it.

The US, Britain, Colombia, France, Germany, Nigeria and Portugal were among council members calling for action.

Activists, analysts and Syrian refugees say the uprising, which has caused a reported 2,000 deaths, will intensify during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts next week. The protesters are calling for democracy and civil rights in a country, ruled by the Assad family for four decades.